Shattered Kingdoms

Actually I agree with dalamar with the things he has said. The animate nerf was needed but a control buff was not needed to compensate for it. I was unaware that had happened, but if it did that really makes no sense to me. One or two strong controls and a massive team of lesser but still useful animates seems just fine. Given what has been said in this thread, the wights in and of themselves are not a problem anymore; the problem is when some guy has a bunch of them.

Dalamar has the right of it and if he gets his way this issue will probably be solved.

I guess I just saw that change differently then. Before cancellation was nerfed, it wasn't so much a "balancing mechanism for charm and control" as it was a "guarantee that if you use charm or control that you're 100% screwed against one specific class which happens to be very plentiful." That's not balance, that's imbalance. All a priest had to do was look at a control, charm, or dominate wrong and it was immediately attacking its master, with virtually no options for counterplay from the person getting their charms dispelled on account of the fast cast time and guaranteed success from cancellation.

Personally, I think that nerfing cancellation was a good balance change, because it isn't fun playing a class when a plentifully available half-round cast spell turns your strengths into weaknesses. Once Dulrik decided to nerf cancellation against charms/controls/dominates, he had to choose between either increasing the cast time on cancellation, which would inadvertently ruin a lot of potential counterplay on dispelling debuffs, or introduce a larger chance of failure. I think it was the right choice. Remove compulsion IMO is a nice level of certainty as a boon towards clothie priests, but in my experience cancellation is a perfectly valid alternative for non-cloth priests.

Not to rain on your parade, but I imagine it was about as fun for a necromancer to have a pet cancelled as it is for some hapless mercenary or barbarian to get annihilated by the skillful tactic of order all bash from three shadowy wights.

That being said, I still don't agree that nerfing shadowy wights is the correct solution - it is the band-aid solution.

We can agree to disagree on that. In all my years of playing SK, I've died to necros abundantly more than I've been killed by remove compulsion/cancellation, but at the same time for every death I've had against a necro, I can point to something I did and say "Yup, I screwed that up so I died." Eventually I got to the point where I stopped dying to necros, and instead got pretty comfortable with completely nullifying them and if they got careless, killing them. Mercenaries, of all, should now have no problem with necros since there's no reason that a merc shouldn't be in a tribunal for endless kiting around while shooting arrows and forcing them ethereal, and that's with zero risk.

On the other hand, prior to the cancellation changes, if a priest walked into the room with you, followed you, and started casting cancellation, you were screwed. The -only- shot you had to stop him from nullifying all of your gear/prep work and forcing you to recall (And back then you didn't take your controls/animates with you) was to try to land an o all dirt, and if that didn't work, the order lag meant that your group would be inside out and the priest would be long gone before you could answer back. That was imbalanced. Now there's an inherent risk of that not working immediately with cancellation or there's a risk of the necro being quick enough to stop him through a lightning fast o all kill on his pet before he finishes the cast.

Honestly, it's pretty absurd that you of all people would play the "think of the poor hapless mercenary/barbarian getting annihilated by o all bash" card, because if anyone ever dies to just o all bash, then they screwed up by not having a pet in front of them, and they would have died to a barb or merc just the same way. Necros are one-dimensional. They HAVE to be in the room with you to damage you. People who whine about how their mercs, warlocks, sorcs, scouts, whatever can't stand toe-to-toe with a necro army need to just learn how to play, and you of all people know that: You totally nullified my necro with your warlock, and you never had to step into the same room as me.

Necromancers are not one dimensional - they are simply played that way most of the time, since they can be a one-man army with shadowy wights. A necromancer in a group setting brings a lot to the table - maledictions, fear and scrolls. That is part of the problem - a mindset that necromancers are a one-trick pony (controlled pets), which is patently false.

It is certainly how they are used by most players, but not their only option. Another significant nerf is likely coming because the people who play the class aren't objective about their strengths and weaknesses.

You completely missed the point. Necros have to be in the room to damage you. That's why they're one dimensional. They wear cloth armor, have no way of healing themselves, have no defensive spells except armor and spellward, and have to be in the room with you to damage you. They also are vulnerable to a spell that can lock them in the room until they die, and all of their class features can be instantly killed by the same spell. This is what most people call a "glass cannon." Necros don't rely on controls instead of spells like fear and blindness and sleep because they have a mental block. It's because if a necro spends one of the precious few combat rounds where he manages to get his enemies in the room with him and isn't about to get being two-shot by circle stab, magma or being pelted full of arrows, then he's woefully wasting his time if all he does is cast weaken or slow.

If a necro has the time and luxury to cast his spells at an enemy, then that necro would have been infinitely better as a shaman or hellion. You're the one talking about how your giant merc destroys plate-mail wearing PCs. Necros can't afford to do stupid stuff like cast fear or recite finger of death at your merc HOPING that maybe in their recite lag they won't die to arrow damage.

No, you have missed the point. You think the only play style available to a necromancer is the one-many army approach where they use controlled pets (previously animated pets) to overwhelm their enemies with massive damage. Of course, this play style is going to get changed because it is not balanced - unfortunately, it will get nerfed in the wrong way. Part of that is because the people that play necromancers are so determined to employ a particular play style that the refuse to objectively look at the strengths and weaknesses of the class.

You can group for PK as a necromancer, like everyone else, and their skill set is very effective - on par with a priest or shaman at the very least (better IMO). On top of that, they still have the option to employ the one-man army approach.

You are welcome to your opinion. But you can't see the things that I have seen and watched. But if you think a hammerc is balanced v a crucromancer, then I'll just laugh right now. I've been watching necros and necro tactics from the wizi heavens for over a year. The balance problem exists. I dont know who you are but should I assume you play a necro based on your responses here?

Necros are supposed to be buff & tough. I've always said that. But getting a few relatively easily accessible OP controlled undead, and order all bash reduces necros to a boring 1-trick pony when they are, and should have to be, more diverse than that.

Agreed

Why does nobody agree with me that the answer isn't that necromancers should group, it's that they should be shunned from most groups! Shun them!